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The Black Swan

Though he was a major box office idol, Tyrone Power was never particularly
overwhelmed by his movie output. "I've done an awful lot of stuff that's a
monument to public patience," he once volunteered. Nevertheless, he must
have been relatively pleased with The Black Swan (1942), a Technicolor
swashbuckling epic that made up for its bouts of anachronistic dialogue,
moments of hokum, and more than a passing resemblance to Errol Flynn's
wildly popular Captain Blood (1935), with spectacular visuals and a
very able cast.

A critic from The New York Times wrote upon the picture's release,
"After seeing The Black Swan...a good many small boys are going to
feel they were born too late into this world." And that was certainly
enough for 20th Century Fox, the studio that released it. Their tag line
for the trailer says it all: "Sea ablaze with black villainy, with
breathless deeds of daring...in the roaring era of love, gold, and
adventure!" You get the idea.

Power stars as James Waring, an assistant to the infamous pirate, Henry
Morgan (Laird Cregar.) Morgan is captured, but his life is spared and he's
made to serve as the new governor of Jamaica, where he's expected to
dissuade his former cronies from their raping and pillaging. In Jamaica,
Waring falls for Margaret Denby (Maureen O'Hara), the daughter of the former
governor. Not surprisingly, given the circumstances, she isn't interested
in Waring. Morgan makes an effort to clean things up, but a couple of
renegade pirates (played by George Sanders and Anthony Quinn) refuse to
repent. When Waring is sent to defeat them, he forcefully and rather
rudely drags Margaret along on the ship.

Waring soon finds the bad guys, but he and his men are outnumbered. They're
imprisoned, and the pirates boldly attack Cregar's headquarters. But don't
worry. Waring (since he's played by Tyrone Power) will ultimately escape
from prison and take care of the uprising. You get one guess as to whether
or not O'Hara will fall for him before the closing credits.

Though the narrative is pretty conventional genre stuff, The Black
Swan was nominated for Oscars for Best Musical Score (by Alfred Newman,
the uncle of modern day songwriter-score composer Randy Newman), Best
Special Effects, and Best Color Cinematography (by Leon Shamroy, who walked
away with the award that year.)

It's somewhat amazing that Power wound up in such heroic roles. Born in
Cincinnati, Ohio in 1913, he was a sickly child who was taken by his family
to the warmer climate of California, but returned to Ohio when his parents
divorced. He remained close to his father, a writer who encouraged Tyrone's
interest in acting. In fact, Power was appearing in a non-speaking role in
a play directed by his father when the older man had a heart attack, dying
in his son's arms.

Power served as a pilot in the Marine Corps during World War II, and saw a
great deal of action in the South Pacific. (The Black Swan was one
of the last big budget pictures to be completed before the U.S. officially
entered the war, and the producers did their part for the effort by limiting
the number of takes that were made of each scene. They felt the chemicals
used in the film could be better utilized by the armed forces.) After the
war, Power's star power held strong. Unfortunately, while shooting yet
another sword duelling scene with his Black Swan co-star, George Sanders, in
1958 for Solomon and Sheba (1959), he suffered a heart attack and died on the way to the hospital. He
was 43 years old.